12. How We Budget as Social Workers

Taylor (00:00)
Hello everyone, welcome back to the Social Work to Wealth podcast. I'm Taylor here with my cohost Faith and today we're gonna be talking about budgeting again. But today specifically we're talking about Faith and I are sharing specific techniques that we use for budgeting. How does it actually look? I think it's helpful to have this conversation because...
Faith (00:15)
Thank
Taylor (00:26)
We don't really talk about money. mean, that's the whole point of this podcast in general, right? Is that we're trying to talk about money more. And I think, you know, we hear, you need to budget. you need to budget. you know, how do people actually budget? I have found that it's been helpful for me to learn from other people when they share different techniques. so hopefully, you know, you can take away something from this episode, get some ideas.
or whatever to help with your budgeting journey. So we're going to start off with Faith and her techniques. And yeah, so what, where do you want to start? Like what you guys are doing now, what you've used before.
Faith (00:53)
Ahem.
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
The thing I think is important to note in the beginning is that
You and I are trying to create an environment where we increase financial literacy. We're trying to talk about what we didn't talk about in grad school. We're trying to open up that conversation, right? And I think one of the things that we don't, you know, we don't talk about in grad school, but we also don't talk about in high school or in a lot of areas of our life is money and budgeting and finances. And so I think for me, I am really passionate about increasing financial literacy. That's something I wish.
Taylor (01:25)
Mm-hmm.
Right.
Faith (01:44)
I had learned in high school before I even went to college. And so I think this podcast and what we're doing is like, that is what we're trying to do. And so by us talking about our budget and getting into the details, are, you know, hopefully meeting that goal. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I guess we could just start with like, what?
Taylor (01:54)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, yeah, no, 100 % agree.
Faith (02:09)
was the first few tips we, or like how budgeting started for my spouse and I, maybe us right there. So, and like techniques that we've used. you know, the first thing that we use as a technique was the envelope system, right? A lot of people.
Taylor (02:14)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Mmm.
Faith (02:29)
probably know what this is. You set aside money. You make all your categories, your bills, your fun money, your savings, and you take cash and you put it in envelopes. And then when the money's gone, you have no more money to spend. so, yeah, we were pretty intense about it. So I think that's the first thing we did. And then we were like,
Taylor (02:36)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, you guys actually like to cash out. I had envelopes. Well, yeah. Yeah.
Faith (02:56)
This is really annoying to pull out cash and put it in envelopes. It did make me more aware. I think having something tangible and physical and it's in my hands and then it's gone really helped me change my relationship with money where if it's just a number on a screen, there's something about it being tangible. I don't know. That really worked for me in terms of
Taylor (02:58)
Yeah, it is annoying.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Faith (03:24)
I need to get this, you know, I need to be more aware of where my money's going. And it kind of, I think, built that awareness. So yeah, we did the envelope system at first, but now we definitely, we just use an Excel spreadsheet and we have different bank accounts for different purposes.
We have like our checking account. We have our savings account. We have like our family planning account or we have our housing account, right? If we want to save when we were saving for a house, it was like down payment account. So using those as our envelopes, which I know Taylor, you've talked about before too. we do that now to kind of organize things.
Taylor (03:54)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, yeah, I love that. And
so with your checking account, do you guys just do a shared checking account or OK?
Faith (04:11)
So we have a shared checking account and every month we go through our Excel spreadsheet and we kind of see where we're at. So like the monthly tasks that we complete on our budget is every month we sit down and we say, let's go through the last month. Let's see.
Taylor (04:21)
Mm-hmm.
You guys have a little money date?
Faith (04:32)
have a money date. Yeah, we a little money date and we see if we reached our goals or if we didn't reach our goals. then, so it's every month we sit down, we go through the numbers and we ask ourselves, what did we spend our money on? Where did it go? Who spent what? And then we ask ourselves, is it worth it? What we spent that money on? Or do we wish it had gone in a different bucket or used for a different purpose? Was it a need versus a want?
Taylor (04:33)
Cute.
Mmm.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Faith (05:01)
you know, kind of conversation. We also
get really, really specific. So we really believe that every dollar should have a purpose or I guess that's called zero based budgeting. So you know where everything's going. It's not just money left over your account that has no purpose because then it's more likely to be spent on things that...
Taylor (05:15)
Yeah.
Faith (05:24)
Maybe you don't want it to be spent on potentially, at least in our case. So we really make sure every dollar has a purpose. So that even comes down to our fun money, we call it. So we each give ourselves each month fun money. And we used to combine it. We used to say our fun money together will be this much per month. And then...
Taylor (05:26)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Faith (05:52)
We had to change that because I was spending most of the fun money.
Taylor (05:54)
Hehehehe. Hehehehe.
Faith (05:59)
You know, my husband was like, wait a minute. I got like 15 bucks. And I was like, well. So we realized that doesn't work for us, which also comes to another point. Like you need to always be asking yourself, this budget working for us? Is it not? So now, and I don't mind sharing, we each give ourselves $500 per month. We don't ask each other what we spent it on. You can spend it on whatever you want.
Taylor (06:04)
You
You
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely.
⁓
huh. Yeah.
Faith (06:27)
But stay within that 500 bucks.
Taylor (06:29)
Yeah, I love that. You know what's
funny is I didn't know you guys do that, but we literally do the same thing. We give each other fun money, and that's what we call it.
Faith (06:36)
Do you? How does that work for you guys?
We literally call it fun money. We're like, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Yeah.
Taylor (06:44)
We literally call it fun money. Yeah. We call
it fun money or we call it like our allowance. But how that came about was, you know, for a while, Brett, I mean, Brett's still in school and he's been in school for the past five years. So I've been the one that's been, you know, I've been the breadwinner of the house. And so there were, there was this one moment and I can't even remember exactly how we
Faith (06:51)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Taylor (07:13)
were like managing our money before this, but I mean, I kind of do. I'll get into that. But anyways, I want to continue on with the story. He was getting into golfing and he really wanted this like golf. I think it was a golf club or something. And he's he's showing it to me and he's he's like, hey, can I buy this? And I just felt so uncomfortable with someone else asking me.
Faith (07:22)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Taylor (07:42)
someone else,
Faith (07:42)
Mm-hmm.
Taylor (07:43)
my partner asking me like my money is his money. And I just felt so uncomfortable him asking me if he could buy something. And so we just had some more conversations and I wanted him to feel comfortable to just buy what buy what you want to buy. I don't care.
Faith (07:52)
Yeah.
Taylor (08:02)
I appreciate it because he's just not, you know, just spending money and overspending and all that. Like he wants to make sure that we're still meeting our goals too and stuff. So really appreciated that. But I thought, you know, what if we both had funds where we no questions asked, we can do whatever we wanted.
Faith (08:03)
Or just...
Taylor (08:23)
So yeah, that's what we do. we also, when you talk about budgets being dynamic, in the winter time, we spend a little bit less. So we do about 350 between
like November to May. And then in the summer, we up that to about 500 because we're just doing more outside outdoor activities. We're going out to eat more with friends. So that's something that we we didn't always do that. But I think this last year we realized, know, we're kind of hitting the max on our our fun money. And, you know, we do want to prioritize joy and stuff before we started doing that.
Faith (08:46)
Hmm.
That's smart.
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Taylor (09:09)
We, I was someone who, love Excel sheets, you know, I did try some budgeting apps, but I would just put in our numbers and then after that, I wouldn't look at it again, you know? And I feel like with a lot of budgets, you really have to track your spending to, like, you know, when we talk about how do you maintain the budget, you kind of have to track your spending.
Faith (09:14)
Mm-hmm.
Mmm, yeah.
Yes.
Taylor (09:38)
so that you can figure out how much you have left in whatever category, right? Do you guys track your spending? How do you track it?
Faith (09:43)
Yeah. Yes, we do.
the brutally hard way, we literally, most of our spending happens like on our debit card or our credit card, right? So at the end of the month,
We have our fun money section of the spreadsheet and has his little category and I have mine and then we literally go through our credit and our, well all our transactions for the month and we say this much and like.
$5 was spent on coffee. Who was that? that was me, right? $6 was once per month, we go through our fun money. And then if we're over, like if I'm over, spent $525, I deduct the $25 from the next month. I only get $475. So like we have freedom in how we spend our money, but we have accountability in like, we can't spend more than a thousand per month.
Taylor (10:17)
Mm-hmm. So you do it once per month.
⁓ interesting.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Faith (10:45)
That's what we have agreed
to. And then we've had the conversation also, we used to be at 300 a month and I said, that's not enough. Like we make good money. I want to have, I need a little bit more flexibility. I need to be able to have a little bit more here. And so we talked about it and was like, you're right. And we adjusted because we're a team. So it doesn't have to be.
Taylor (10:51)
Yeah. I want to have fun. I want to enjoy my life. Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Faith (11:08)
It's dynamic, it's changing, but we do have accountability built in.
Our priorities of how we want to spend our money are different. And so I felt like I was asking at times permission from my husband on how I could spend the money when we were having that joint fund money approach. And so by us separating, we can spend our money how we want. We have accountability at the end of the month to make sure we're staying within our limits. But...
Taylor (11:14)
Mm-hmm.
Faith (11:36)
Yeah, like his priorities are totally different. He will save month after month after month and go make a $2,000 purchase. I spend my 500 every month. I'm like, I want coffee. I want that sweater. So like, and then I felt like I was getting judged for how I wanted to spend my money. So now we have our little fun money accounts. We can do what we want with them.
Taylor (11:38)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You don't look over
here, I won't look over there. We can do what we want.
Faith (12:01)
And as long as I'm in 500, we're good. And if I'm not, okay, that's fair, deduct for the next month.
Taylor (12:03)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, I love that. It also gives us just that freedom to enjoy, you know, I think we talked about in our last episode with Maureen about that people feeling restricted and with budgeting, but it was really important to us to have this money where we're still enjoying our lives because, you know, as most people know already,
Faith (12:12)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Yeah.
Taylor (12:31)
We have six figures of student loan debt that we're still trying to pay off, you know, and we're wanting to prioritize, you know, still enjoying our life. Before, I want to get into kind of the way that we budget now, but before, like I was saying, we just, we wouldn't track our expenses. I would put it in and then.
Faith (12:50)
Yeah.
Taylor (12:55)
I mean, I don't know what I was doing with my money then. It just kind of was happening and things were being spent and we had credit card debt and I don't know. And then I thought of this or found this, I saw this idea about it's the envelope system. So similar to what you were talking about, what you were talking about, but it's a digital version because...
Faith (13:00)
Yeah.
Mmm, yeah.
Hmm.
Taylor (13:21)
I'm going to be honest, we don't track our expenses because we don't really need to track the expenses. Like we, we have a budget and we figure out, okay, how much do we want to budget for food? How much are, you know, is our fun money, our bills? So in that sense, we do the, you know, zero based budget so that we make sure that every dollar has a job. And I think that's the thing about budgeting is
Faith (13:24)
You don't
Same.
job.
Taylor (13:52)
Your budget is your plan for your money. we, you and I type A people, we love to plan. I know a lot of other social workers type A, we love to plan for stuff, but for some reason planning for our money just, you know, we just don't really see it that way. But I think having that, that reframe of like, what are you going to tell your money to do? Don't let it tell you what to do. And I think that's been what's been most empowering in my money journey is
Faith (13:55)
Mm-hmm.
Great.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Taylor (14:21)
I'm in control. No, I'm telling you what to do. Okay. Like you're, I'm the boss. I'm the captain now. so we, yeah, we have our Excel sheet and we put in, you know, how much is for food and all of that. And one thing that I realized that, you know, I feel I've, I feel that other budgeting techniques and that's okay. And I think that's something that I've realized over time is
Faith (14:26)
You listen to me. Yeah. Yeah.
Taylor (14:49)
it's going to change and evolve with you and maybe it just doesn't work for you because I've tried the, you know, the, the apps and, you know, trying to track my expenses. I don't want to sit down every week and figure out how much I've spent. I just never do it, you know? And so we combine.
Faith (14:51)
gonna change.
Yeah. Yeah. So how does the
app work with that? Like, I'm confused. So like for us, we go line by line. But how does it work where you don't have to go line by line?
Taylor (15:20)
Yeah,
so we do have an Excel sheet or you know Google sheet or whatever and we have it. We have all of our how much we're spending in each category. So we have bills, we have food, our fund money, know savings and then debt. And we organize our bank accounts so we have we have multiple checking accounts that we share and that's kind of our digital envelope. So we have a
Faith (15:23)
Yeah.
Yep. Yep.
Got it.
Taylor (15:49)
We have an account for bills and only bills come out of that. We have an account for food and then, Brett has his own account and then I have my own spending account and then, and then we have, you know, our savings accounts. So I, I, we also have a, this is a lot of accounts, but we also have a deposits account. all, so when I get paid, the money goes into the deposits.
Faith (15:53)
Mmm.
So then do you use?
Yeah.
Yes.
Okay.
Taylor (16:19)
And I've
figured out that, okay, when I get paid, this is how much money needs to go into the bills account. This is how much money needs to go into the food account. This is how much money needs to go into our fun money account.
Faith (16:27)
Mm.
So it's like an
umbrella account. All deposits go into one account. And then do you have it automated where it flushes out to these other accounts? Okay. So each month...
Taylor (16:41)
Girl, yes. Yes. Yeah. Except the bills. Except the
bills. Because sometimes our bills fall on different days. But so I kind of plan for that. But most of the time it's the same. So anyways, yeah. But I have the ones I for sure have automated always is our fun money. So it's like every four weeks that just transfers. Yeah. Every four weeks the money transfers to the food.
Faith (16:51)
Yeah.
500 bucks more.
Mmm, okay.
Taylor (17:08)
⁓ and then, you
know, we'll have money leftover for savings. And that's one thing that we do is, you know, that I typically recommend for people to automate their savings so that they don't have to think about it and whatever, you know, but I'm, I'm looking at our money every week just because that's just who I am. And so I'm, I trust myself to put money into savings and like make those, those moves. So I don't have it automatic because sometimes
Faith (17:22)
Yep.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Taylor (17:38)
you know, our savings goals change, our savings goals change month by month, you know, sometimes we're saving for Christmas presents, sometimes we're, you know, things like that, but, um...
Faith (17:42)
change.
Yeah. Yeah.
Do you then have different debit cards for the different accounts? And then you're like, this is my fun debit card. This is my bills debit card or whatever. Okay. I see. So then each account has a different credit or debit card.
Taylor (17:56)
Mm-hmm, right. Yeah, yeah, so I have in my...
A different debit card. Yeah.
And so I have a little, mean, I have a label maker and I just, I literally labeled food, personal bills. ⁓ and like the bills, the bills debit card, I don't even, I don't, you know, really take out with me because I have all of our bills coming out of that account automatically. ⁓ and then yeah, the food and the personal, and I, I absolutely love that because I can.
Faith (18:13)
Okay.
automatic.
I see how you do that. See?
Taylor (18:34)
open up my app, my bank and you know, you can have multiple checking counts within one bank. I have a credit union, so they're not charging me anything. So that's why we love credit unions. That's why we love credit unions. credit unions, credit unions. That's going to be just like the running joke, just like throughout this podcast. Credit unions, credit unions. So, but I love that I can open up my phone and
Faith (18:44)
Right? Same. unions, credit unions. People are gonna be so annoyed with me saying that, like, credit unions.
Woo!
Yeah.
Taylor (19:04)
I can see, okay, how much money do I have left in our food account? How much money do I have left for my personal spending? Do I have $50 left? And there's one more week until I get replenished? What do I want to do? Do I want to go out to dinner now? Or do I want to go out to dinner on Thursday when I have plans with friends? So it also helps me. I think that's the thing. I'm totally just going off in, but...
Faith (19:17)
You got it.
Yeah.
No, I love this. This is great.
Taylor (19:34)
I feel like that's thing about
the fun money too that we've learned because I think before we weren't checking our expenses. We were just swiping, swiping here, swiping here. We weren't really saying no to each other, saying no to ourselves and we realized that. And now that we have this allotted amount of money, we have to decide what is most, what's more important to me.
Faith (19:47)
Yes.
Mmm.
Taylor (20:02)
do I want this or do I want that? And it's kind of helping me, it's helped us just be a little bit more intentional in the things that we're buying and not just saying yes to everything and realizing sometimes we have to say no to ourselves because we have these other goals. We wanna pay off debt, we wanna invest, you know? And so it's helped have that nice balance.
Faith (20:24)
I love that and I'm totally gonna try to talk my husband into doing this because the different cards for the different accounts, because I'm still going over my fun budget money or fun money every month and I'm always getting docked and then it's getting less and less and I'm like no and it's because I can't track it and I told him, I told him can I just go back to cash?
Taylor (20:29)
What?
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Cause it's hard to track, right? You can't see. Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Faith (20:53)
Cash
really worked for me. So I feel like this, even though there are more debit cards, he could choose to do it a different way. But for me, maybe it would be better to just have my fun debit card and then I can go on my app and be like, okay, I have this much money in there to spend.
Taylor (20:59)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
to just have your one fun money account. Yeah.
Yeah.
Faith (21:15)
Because you're right. I really also do not enjoy the process of going through line by line and being like looking at what my husband spent his money on and looking at what I spent my money on. I'm like, yeah, got another coffee. Yeah, I went out to Panera again. Yeah, I got that shirt. It was cute. Like, I don't enjoy that process. So it'd kind of great to just have a little bit. That's a, I really am going to talk to him about that.
Taylor (21:27)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, totally. And
I think, you know, I think we we kind of have it a little excessive. Sometimes when I talk to people like, yeah, we have six checking accounts like that. It's it's it's kind of a lot. I can I can understand that. It's kind of a lot to manage. And sometimes people just have to like this are this is the house bills and food. And then this is like you could just have your own.
Faith (21:45)
Yeah.
Hehehehe
Taylor (22:06)
This is my spending account. Even if you don't want to do it, I want my own checking account for, for my spending and totally.
Faith (22:06)
I think maybe it's like...
to keep myself more accountable and also just
to see that number going down, that visual, I'm very visual, I think that that would be really helpful for me. And credit, the credit union we have here prints out, they print out the debit cards there. They have a machine, they'll print out your debit card there. It's not an extra fee, you just go in, open an account. It's actually really simple. And when you get paid, you just transfer that money and then you use that debit card for that purpose. I love it, I'm doing it. I'm doing it.
Taylor (22:28)
Nice.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, no. I love that.
Faith (22:43)
his permission. I'm doing it.
Taylor (22:47)
But yeah, because I think before, you know, we had all our money going into one account and then I think to really be on track with making sure you don't go over in a certain line, on a certain line item, I think you have to track it weekly so that you know, okay, how much money do I have left? How much money do I have left this month? You know, yeah.
Faith (23:06)
Yes. I'm always like doing it in my head. Like I think
I did that, that, that. And then there's always something on the list. Like I forgot about that one. And I agree. I think it needs to just be.
Taylor (23:13)
Mm-hmm.
It's just so tedious
and I think, you know, as social workers, I think we're just too busy for that shit. I'm sorry.
Faith (23:25)
I literally
am like, I'm tired. Yeah, I'm tired. So smart.
Taylor (23:28)
It's a lot. tried. I've seriously tried to
make my budgeting system. I'm I call myself a lazy budgeter. It's I try to make it automatic. You know, I don't have to track my expenses because like I just look into the account, how much money is left. But it's been trial and error, honestly, you know, because it hasn't always been this hasn't always been.
Faith (23:37)
Yeah. Yeah.
Okay, yeah.
Taylor (23:57)
the way that we've done it. And I will say one thing that I think was a mistake that I had been making for a long time was I sit down, I'm like, okay, I'm to make a budget. is, this is before we found this system that really works for us. Okay, I'm gonna sit down, I'm going to make a budget. And then I just have this idea of, want us to only spend $500 on food this month or, know, $600. I just make up a number. I think
Faith (24:18)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Taylor (24:27)
I was just,
I was just always making up numbers. This is how much I want. This is how much I want us to spend on this. This is how much I want us to spend on eating out, you know? And what really helped us become accurate is actually looking at past months. Like how much have you been spending on groceries? If you've been spending a thousand dollars a month on groceries, it's going to be really hard to spend $500 on groceries. So
Faith (24:30)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
hard.
Taylor (24:55)
It's really important to look back and I looked back three months and went through and highlighted all of our food purchases, all of our, you know, eating out purchases, fun money, all of that stuff to really see like, what have we been spending? And of course we were overspending and so we did need to like decrease it a little bit so that we can, you know, start meeting our goals and start paying off debt and things like that and get out of credit card debt. But
Faith (25:03)
Wow, yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Right.
Taylor (25:25)
You know, just don't just like make up numbers, like look back and see what your spending habits have have been. And maybe you can pull it in a little bit, but going from a thousand dollars to five hundred, it's just it's not going to be sustainable. Right.
Faith (25:28)
Yeah.
Yeah, I agree. It's not going to happen. Uh-huh.
And I think also try out different numbers.
Taylor (25:43)
Yeah.
Faith (25:44)
Right? So like if you say, okay, we based on our past spending on average, we actually spend a thousand dollars on groceries per month. Right? So, but we'd love to get it down to 800 or trim it up a little bit. Let's see. And put that in the book, the food bucket in your checking account and then see if you can do it and see if it works. And if it doesn't work, it doesn't work. And you need to find a different place maybe to make that, to, find that extra wiggle room.
Taylor (25:52)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Faith (26:14)
And that's okay. You can try on different budgets and there's no shame in it. How are you currently going about paying off your debt? What does that look like and how do you work it into your budget?
Taylor (26:14)
Yeah, it's okay to change.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, so we don't have any like consumer debt per se. So that's like credit card debt or any other type of debt. It's just student loans. And right now I've been getting, I think I've talked about this before, I'm getting $40,000, know, a year for two years. So total I'm getting like $88,000. And so
Faith (26:56)
Yeah.
Taylor (27:01)
I've been using that money to pay on my student loans because that's what they're for. And those are covering my monthly payments. And also I can make a large payment with that too. so we've been, yeah, yeah. So it's the organ, I think it's called the Organ Behavioral Loan Repayment Program or something. so it was a,
Faith (27:16)
How did you get that again? Just for people who don't know. What is that, 88,000?
Yeah.
Taylor (27:28)
program
through the state and they offered student loan help to clinicians who are working in behavioral health, a behavioral health field, prioritizing people who work with underserved populations, minorities, and they prioritize clinicians who are minorities, or in the minority group, whatever. So I applied and I was able to get,
Faith (27:51)
Yeah.
Taylor (27:57)
up to 70 % of my student loan balance. So, but I had to make a commitment of working in a behavior health field for two years, which my job that I had when I applied counted and I was already gonna be working there anyway. I got an award of $88,000. And so every three months I get $11,000 to put towards my student loans. So part of it, I cover my monthly payments and then I make like a big
Faith (28:07)
Mm-hmm.
Cool.
Cool.
Taylor (28:26)
payment with that. I just got my disbursement from them. So that'll be ending soon. But that's actually been, that's been really helpful to uncovering the payments. But after that, we're going to have to start making sure that those are, you know, part of our, our budget. And I'm just going to kind of make it, it's
Faith (28:34)
So cool.
Mmm.
Taylor (28:53)
It's a bill, essentially, in my mind, something that I know is recurring. I'm just going to put that money in our bills account. I'm going to make it automatic. And I'm just going to know, like, OK, this is coming. This is coming out of that. And so, yeah, you know, that's something that we have to prioritize at this point. Yeah.
Faith (28:55)
Yeah. Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, cool.
Yeah, so
you just kind of think of it as a bill that is now going to be in your budget as like a new bill or as something that you... Like, will you have to pull from other buckets? Like, other buckets to afford it? Like, how is your budget... Like, is your fund money going to have go down? It's like, how?
Taylor (29:18)
Mm-hmm.
What do mean?
⁓ yeah. Yeah.
I see what you're saying. Yeah,
good question. So I think this, the transition is kind of perfect timing into where Brett will start making money And so he's going to now have an income. So our income is going to go up a little bit. But I'm also going to be decreasing my hours at work. But I say all that to say, I think I do not want our fund money to
Faith (29:46)
Yeah.
Cool.
Taylor (30:00)
to decrease. just want to put, I just want to say that we are not decreasing the fund money. ⁓ so it might have to come from our savings. don't know. I kind of need to see, you know, what his checks actually look like. Cause I have an estimate, you know, of what they may be, but, I, yeah, I, I want to prioritize us having fun. And I know, you know, that's something that we can maybe get into talking about just our
Faith (30:00)
That is not JJ. Yeah, yeah
Yeah.
Taylor (30:29)
priorities and mindset and philosophy around, you know, managing our money. It's like, I want us to enjoy our lives. work, you know, I see a lot of death in my work and so does he and we just, we know how short life can be. You know, how corny that sounds, but I do want us to plan for our goals and we're still doing that. Like I'm still...
Faith (30:32)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Taylor (30:59)
Contributing to my retirement up to get my match, you know, we're still saving and things like that But I want to enjoy my life now, you know, so that's Yeah
Faith (31:02)
Yep.
There's just things you're not gonna compromise on when it comes to that. We use the snowball technique for paying off debt and just for people who don't know what that is.
Taylor (31:15)
No. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Faith (31:29)
Let's say you have three loans that are $300 each. You pay off the loan with the highest interest rate first. And once that loan is paid off, you take that $300. You don't just put that into your fund money. You don't just put that into your savings. You say, now I'm going to apply the extra $300 I have to the next loan. So now I'm making, I have two loans left. One I'm paying $600 on and one I'm paying.
Taylor (31:44)
Hmm.
Faith (31:54)
$300 on or you could split the extra 300 you could do like 450 450 then once that Next loan is paid off you apply all of that money to the last loan so like Now I have $900. I'm putting on one loan, and it's a way to crush debt faster That's the idea
Taylor (31:55)
Mm-hmm.
Faith (32:16)
and your budget doesn't change. So like you're committing to live with that budget. So that is how we took on my debt was it wasn't like I got 300 bucks once I paid off my car or know back into my budget that I could just use for whatever I wanted. I just used that towards the next loan and it worked for us. We both had to agree to that but it worked for us. That's how we did that.
Taylor (32:21)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, yeah.
Faith (32:44)
So like when it comes to like our philosophy or our mindset of money, we really value working as a team. We really value being on the same page. We make decisions together around small savings goals, but also long-term saving goals. like the first thing for us was paying off debt. That was a big...
Taylor (32:50)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Faith (33:06)
Long-term goal that we agreed to then it was saving for a house Then it was family planning and then we had a house something in our house We wanted to renovate so we saved towards that so it was like short-term saving goals, but also long-term savings goals And some of the things we would say to ourselves, you know, it's like what do we need to change in our budget to? Get closer to that goal
Taylor (33:20)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Faith (33:33)
which one of those things for us around family planning was I needed to increase my income. So that pushed me to open my own private practice to even entertain the possibility of having a family, right? So that I think...
Taylor (33:38)
Hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Faith (33:51)
before we even agreed like we're gonna have kids and this is what we might wanna do, that was something I had to explore first to see if we could generate the income. And then another thing we do is we try to live out the new budget before we actually change the budget. So if there's something we wanna do, like we wanna start, go on a big trip, yeah, or like.
Taylor (34:01)
Mm-hmm.
you know, go on a big trip that you're saving for or something.
Faith (34:19)
family planning. Well what would a kid budget look like?
Taylor (34:20)
Mm-hmm.
Mmm.
Faith (34:25)
Oh, this is how much we would be paying for daycare. So that doesn't exist anymore. You need to put that into a daycare fund. This is how much food would go up. So we live under this new food budget. Can we afford or like when we wanted to buy a house, this is how much our interest rate is probably going to be. This is how much we're probably going to have to pay for rent. Let's live that new budget for six months and see how we feel. And if we're like, yeah, no, we can't, we can't swing that mortgage. We're not buying that. We're not going to buy a house at that price. So we like try on a budget that
Taylor (34:33)
Wow.
Yeah. Yeah.
Wow.
I like that. You try it on, see if it works. That's really such a good idea. Yeah.
Faith (34:53)
is a version of what it might be. Seriously, see if it works. We want a new car.
Well, that's what our car payment would be like. Okay, how do we feel with that being out of our budget? So that's something we've done over the years together as a philosophy and in a mindset to see like, do we like that pain in our life? Does that feel worth it before you even get the thing that you want?
Taylor (35:03)
Mmm.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Faith (35:22)
And then the other thing is we're not afraid to know, know, obviously your budget's always changing and adjusting, but we're also not afraid to ask for help. Right? So like working with, asking for people's opinion or asking for family members kind of input or like we're going to, if they give us bad advice, obviously we'd be like, well, we're not going to do that. But you know, being open to like other feedback and not being in isolation with it.
Taylor (35:43)
But thanks! Yeah.
Faith (35:50)
And then the last thing is really understanding like our philosophy, is we tend to be very risk aversive, conservative, prioritize security and safety, which other people, could be totally different for them. But for us as a team, that's what we really value is to eventually obviously not have to worry about money.
Taylor (35:57)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Yeah,
I love that because I think that's something that we don't really talk about in terms of pairing with budgeting of what is important to you? Like what do you value? And that's how we should structure the way that you're spending your money, you know, because this is about you. So I think that's an important question.
Faith (36:19)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Taylor (36:39)
for people to ask themselves, you know, while they're going through this process. I also, I just remembered that when we were starting to kind of transition to this new budgeting system and paying off our credit card debt, we completely stopped using our credit cards. It was like, okay, clearly we don't know.
Faith (36:41)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Hmm.
Taylor (37:02)
We cannot manage that right now. I just wanted us to go back to using only the money in our checking accounts. We only use our debit cards and that really helped us learn how to spend the money that we only spend the money that we have because I think credit cards, it's easy to just spend, spend, spend. You have a high balance And going back to just using our debit cards.
Faith (37:03)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Taylor (37:28)
got us in that practice of if we're going to buy something on our credit card, we need to have the money in our checking account to pay it off, you know, because what's the point of using the credit card? It's for points, you know, I know people love to get their points for whatever.
Faith (37:36)
Yes.
Mm-hmm.
Taylor (37:46)
There's also a safety aspect
Faith (37:46)
Yeah.
Taylor (37:49)
too. There's a lot of protections with using your credit card instead of using your debit card. You can dispute a purchase, stuff like that. And so I recognize the value that credit cards can bring, but if you're in debt and in credit card debt and you're accruing interest every month,
Faith (37:58)
Yes.
Taylor (38:16)
but you really want your points and so that's why you're using your credit card. The points, the interest is out, is just canceling out the points that you're getting and so it's really not worth it. So that was something really, that was a really pivotal moment for us to just implement that and once we kinda got comfortable, then we started.
Faith (38:25)
It's not worth it. Yeah.
Yes.
huge.
Taylor (38:42)
implementing the credit cards back in and now we get our points and all of that and so I think that's all that's one little thing that I will say in terms of our spending I do most of them though I manage most of our money and so I'll put a lot of stuff on the credit card and then I'll have to manually go in and Transfer and make sure like okay. How much how much food went on the credit card? I need to
Faith (38:57)
Yeah.
And pay it off.
Yep.
Taylor (39:09)
take that from the food budget, you know, so there's a little bit of
calculations that I have to do in that regard because I do want to get the points. So we've gotten to a place where we feel comfortable using the credit cards. But yeah, I just want to encourage people to it's OK to just take a break, pay off what you need to and get comfortable spending the money that you have in your spending only the money that you have. I know that sounds
Faith (39:17)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Taylor (39:38)
kind of nuts, but...
Faith (39:38)
No, I think it's great.
taking a break from the credit card is really smart and really to be like, let me man, like what is...
What is coming into my account? Let me manage what I have going on and then I'm get used to that.
Taylor (39:49)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Faith (39:54)
psychologically, you know, emotionally like, okay, I adjust to that. Then let's introduce a credit card because I know I'm not going to get in this pattern of not paying it off. And then that interest rate just like hits you. It's like, okay, I'm paying this off. No, this is just normal. And then there's a lot of messaging like, well, you got to use your credit card because then you got to keep it active. Otherwise your credit card score is going to go down and don't
Taylor (39:57)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Yeah,
Faith (40:17)
close the credit card and no, no, just like do what you gotta do.
Taylor (40:18)
Yeah. Yeah, you don't have to use it. mean, they might.
feel like they they'll close it after like a year or two if there's no transactions on it. mean, even going six months to taking a break, that's totally fine. And if you're you know, if you just want this credit card to be over with and done, I've definitely closed credit cards because I just didn't want I just didn't want it in my life anymore. You know, and if
Faith (40:28)
Yeah, it's...
Totally fine. Yeah.
Taylor (40:46)
If that gives you more peace of mind, if that gives you peace of mind, do it. Your credit score will be okay as long as you're continuing to, make your payments on time and you start decreasing, the amount that you have out. then your credit score will go up over time. You, can get there. So yeah, I totally agree. Just, just let it go.
Faith (40:50)
Do it.
Yeah.
Yeah, okay, good. It's not
like, just let it go. I also am like, I get that people are in different positions and it's not always that simple. So I'm not trying to be like, if you don't know how to measure a debt, don't even care. Like people are in more complex situations. Yeah. Things, totally. Right.
Taylor (41:17)
Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes we need credit cards to manage our, to buy basic things. yeah. Yeah. To manage our basic needs.
That's super unfortunate. And I'm sure there are some social workers who are not making enough money, which is BS. We know that's a whole other conversation.
Faith (41:34)
Why they have to, yes. Right, exactly.
But like on the credit card thing, think just my, again, it comes back to my philosophy. Like I'm very conservative and risk aversive and like I value like safety and security. so, and I know a lot of people value that. So credit cards scare me actually. I get scared by them. And
Taylor (41:47)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mmm.
Faith (41:59)
So my husband and I, both of us don't have credit cards. So like, he never had a credit card, we have one now. He didn't have any credit cards, and I didn't have any credit cards. And the only place that that really affected us was when we wanted to buy a house. We were like,
Taylor (42:04)
Fascinating. You guys don't have credit cards at all?
Did you not have any credit
or what?
Faith (42:21)
We
had, I had credit because I had student loans and I had gotten, and I had a car. So I had some form of like way of showing that I've taken on debt and can pay off debt, right? So that worked in our favor. My husband was completely off the books. Like people were like, you don't exist in terms of credit. had zero credit score.
Taylor (42:34)
huh.
What?
Faith (42:42)
Mm-hmm. So and and as a couple
Taylor (42:43)
That's nuts.
Faith (42:45)
we never took out credit a credit card at all We were like this is terrible. This is how you get like screwed like so we were both very Yeah, yeah Yes
Taylor (42:52)
I mean, yeah, it's definitely a predatory system. It is designed to get you in debt, to get you spending, to keep you in debt. That is absolutely their intention.
And so, yeah, let's not forget that for sure.
Faith (43:08)
Yeah, so
we were very like, I think scared. And then when we wanted to get a house, we started like shopping around at different places and they were like, well, you don't have any credit. And we're like, yeah. And so we had to like, we got a credit card through our credit union, literally for the purpose of just building credit so we could get a larger loan for the home. And...
Taylor (43:31)
Wow, fascinating.
Faith (43:34)
Honestly, it took us six months. That's it. you just and we our credit card limit is a thousand dollars. That's it per month We only have a thousand dollars on our credit card limit. We've never changed it They're like you can be approved for then we start getting all this advertisement for like you go a ten thousand dollar limit But we're like that's we're not interested in that the credit is for a purpose Which was to just show that we are responsible that we can pay off You know
Taylor (43:36)
Yeah.
Wow.
Of course. Of course.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Faith (44:01)
this little loan every month
Taylor (44:02)
Yeah.
Faith (44:03)
and they look at your debt to income ratio when you get a home anyways and they're like your debt to income ratio is zero because you have no debt right now. So it was fine for us in our position we were in but I think that's how we will. Maybe that's a horrible advice but that's how it worked out for us and we still are like.
Taylor (44:06)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
No. Yeah.
Faith (44:27)
Yeah, I don't know. Credit cards are just not our game. Yeah.
Taylor (44:28)
That's so fascinating. didn't know. Yeah, yeah, that's totally fine. And I think, you know, sometimes
there people aren't comfortable with them. and that is the the beauty of personal finance. It's all personal and unique to each of us. And because I love my credit card points, I have. I'm going on trips with these points and getting cash back like I I'm in the credit card point game.
Faith (44:37)
Yeah.
Yes! Yes.
Yeah.
Taylor (44:57)
It's fun.
Faith (44:58)
And maybe we need to learn some things about that because we're so freaking scared of it. But
like we do fly a lot. And so I'm like, I've talked to my spouse about like, hey, maybe we need to get a card where we could get some points towards flights, you know, and things like that. I mean, creative, but yeah. So. so good. Do you have anything else, any tips, tricks, philosophy, mindset, anything to share in terms of?
Taylor (45:05)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I hope that's fun. That's fun. I know.
I
think summer summary for me is just making sure you're having fun and having joy in your life and being able to set aside money to have, yeah, to buy things that you enjoy. And maybe it's not $300 or 500, maybe it's $50 because that's all you got, but.
Faith (45:29)
budgeting.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Taylor (45:48)
Give
yourself a little something that you can just spend on whatever. I think that's helpful in balancing, you know, because our priority still is paying off debt and it will be until, you know, we have like $199,000 of debt or in student loans or something insane. So, yeah, just prioritize some fun, however much you can. Be okay with updating your budget.
Faith (45:52)
I agree.
Yeah.
Right.
Taylor (46:18)
you know, changing the way you're doing it and knowing that the first thing that you try might not work. That's okay. Keep going. Doesn't mean you're a failure. We've all been there. You kind of have to try some things to find something that works for you. Yeah, I think those are kind of my two main takeaways. Yeah.
Faith (46:27)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah. I also agree with the joy piece, the fun money. I love that we both just on our own. We've never talked about that. We both just label it as fun money. It's like a pressure valve.
Taylor (46:53)
We've never done...
Faith (47:01)
We all need a pressure valve or release. And if you're constantly working to pay off debt and you're never enjoying any of the money you bring in, you, I just don't see that as sustainable. I need a pressure release, a pressure valve. I need to feel like I get a little bit of this while I'm reaching these huge goals. Like I need a little
Taylor (47:09)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Faith (47:22)
Valve right to let that steam out to let and so like I have a little bit of like money I can spend I feel good about it and then when you're out from underneath that cloud of debt then gosh you have so many more opportunities and that pressure is really lifted off, but I kind of see that as like a little bit of like a Otherwise, I just I think I would get really cranky and I would just be really upset and it would suck Like you know like I just feel miserable and so yeah
Taylor (47:22)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
No! Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Faith (47:51)
We also have a savings for I guess I didn't mention this we have a savings for vacation of course Yeah, so vacations and yeah, yeah
Taylor (48:01)
Yeah, same. We have our
money in a high-end savings account. I do love Ally, A-L-L-Y. That's a great savings account because they naturally let you do an envelope system. They call them buckets and they just let you categorize your savings account in different buckets, which, yeah, super love that.
Faith (48:09)
Mm.
Yeah.
There you go.
That's awesome. The other thing I
forgot to mention that we also do for savings is an emergency fund. like we have, I think it's what saved at this point, what is it like three months of your expenses or whatever, like the bare bones, like you can't survive unless you pay your rent, right? Like those kinds of things saved. And it's just sitting there for like, it's like your own insurance fund. It's just sitting there in case you have a rainy day, your car breaks down, something happens and you know, the pandemic happens and you need to go.
Taylor (48:29)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Oh my
Faith (48:54)
like do a huge shopping trip because you need all that toilet paper? You know, you lose or you lose your job unexpectedly. Yeah, that's more real. Yeah, right.
Taylor (48:54)
gosh, right? Or you lose your job. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Faith (49:05)
So I forgot to mention that we also have that as well.
Taylor (49:08)
Yeah,
Faith (49:09)
So, okay, what's our money moment? Yeah.
Taylor (49:09)
nice, love it. Our money moment is
so, this is really interesting.
I think I've talked to you about this before maybe, about Pokemon cards. Yes. I don't think, has it been my money moment before? No, I don't think so. Yeah. Yeah. So, Brett has these Pokemon cards. He's had them for, since he was in middle school, you know? And what's funny is,
Faith (49:23)
Yes, yes, you have.
I don't think so. Gosh, I can't remember.
Yeah.
Ugh.
Taylor (49:43)
They have always been, you know, he would collect them and they've always been something where you never know how much you can get for them. Maybe they'll pay for college and you know what? You know what I mean? So he was really good about, you know, keeping most of them in pristine condition. And last year, you know, we're cleaning and I find the binder again. He's he's he's moved with them.
Faith (49:53)
Yeah.
Taylor (50:11)
of course his whole life and I finally was like how much are these worth? Like what what do we got going on here? You know they're just sitting here let me see so I started doing a little digging into eBay and I found wow you have some pretty good cards like maybe you know what can we what can we do? And and it was starting to come up to his ⁓
Faith (50:11)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yes. Yeah.
No way.
Taylor (50:40)
medical school graduation. And so I said, what if we sold some of these cars and we went on a trip to celebrate your graduation? Obviously, we're not going to be able to pay for your school because you're done, about to be done. But what if we take a trip and celebrate this huge milestone? mean, it's been a long time coming. I've known him for 13 years now, you know, and
Faith (50:50)
Yes.
Hahaha
Yes.
Taylor (51:10)
Since I've met him, he's always wanted to be a doctor. So it's really cool. I know I just, my God, I feel like I'm going to cry. It's seriously amazing. So I was like, OK, I'm going to do this Started researching. How do I sell Pokemon cards and all this? You have to get them graded.
Faith (51:10)
Yeah.
Ugh.
I could like, I know! This is so cool. Taylor, yeah.
I'm
Yeah.
Taylor (51:34)
you know, which you send them into this professional collector's agency, they really evaluate the card and they give it a grade from, you know, one to 10 and 10 is pristine and it's really hard to get a 10, but when you, when you get a 10, that card is worth way more than a nine. And so you just really want, you just really want a 10.
Faith (51:39)
Wow.
Get a 10.
Wow. You
love that point system and this is like another point system like, give me that 10. Yeah. Yeah.
Taylor (52:04)
Gimme the 10! So I've
gotten, I've already sold some cards, so I have the spreadsheet up. Of course I have a spreadsheet because people know I'm the spreadsheet queen, but.
Faith (52:17)
Yeah.
Taylor (52:20)
You're going to be shocked. so gross revenue. And I say gross revenue because you have to pay to get them graded. And that's it's kind of expensive. And so we've spent about three thousand dollars on getting them graded. So gross revenue is I'm going around it's nine thousand nine hundred and thirty eight dollars. Yeah.
Faith (52:21)
I'm so excited. Okay, what? What happened? Yeah.
Yeah.
Wow, okay.
Whoa.
Taylor (52:52)
$9,000. Or almost, it's, I mean, $9,938. It's almost $10,000. So $10,000. And so in our bank account from this, from the fees and everything, we have about 5,800. And so I've, so we're going on a trip. We're going to Mexico City. So I've already bought.
Faith (53:09)
Wow.
Wow. Yes you
are!
Taylor (53:14)
Yes, I've
already bought the Airbnb. I'm going to get the flights. We're taking his mom. We can pay for her to go.
Faith (53:21)
⁓ my god, can I come or?
Seriously, like you don't have to bring your good friend. That's awesome.
Taylor (53:29)
So, and these,
this isn't even all the cards. This is only probably, oh gosh, what a 30 or so? Because these were like the, some of the top, top cards, you know? And I just got, I just sent in a whole bunch more, 120 to get graded. And they're not gonna sell for these high prices, but I'm.
Faith (53:33)
I was gonna say how many cards is this?
Dude.
Taylor (53:54)
hoping again gross revenue to make about between like six to eight thousand dollars on these cards. So I say all that to say if you have some Pokemon cards that are just laying around please you know go and see send them in get them graded it is you know like I said you have to pay to get them graded but it's kind of to
Faith (54:04)
That is incredible. Yeah, money moment.
Wow.
Taylor (54:21)
it's easier to sell them to get them graded. even though it's expensive, like once they're graded, people trust that a little bit more. So we wouldn't have been able to, even though we had to spend a lot of money and all of this money is coming out of the money that we've made. so nothing has really come out of our pocket, but to make the money that we have made, we've had to spend that money to get them graded. it's been, it's been, it's been
Faith (54:24)
once they're certified graded. Yeah. yeah.
Yeah.
course.
That is so
cool.
Taylor (54:47)
It's been kind of
fun because I've learned so much about Pokemon, which I never even thought I would.
Faith (54:52)
Yeah.
This is so, this is amazing. I never hear these stories. I always heard about, know, say the Beanie Baby, right? Remember the Beanie Baby whole thing? Or like the American Girl dolls? I don't know if you've heard about that. Those are becoming really like expensive now and stuff. Dude, this is so cool.
Taylor (55:01)
Oh yeah. Yep. Yep. Yep.
Yeah, it's been
amazing and I can't believe there are people out there. I I had no idea how much people love Pokemon cards and also how much people would spend on Pokemon cards. Like one of the cards that we had, we got a nine on it. If we would have gotten a 10, it would have been worth $20,000. Like this is...
Faith (55:22)
cards.
⁓
Taylor (55:38)
people are spending beaucoup bucks on these cards. And I mean, one of the ones that I sold was, I sold one for 3,100 for one card. And people, they're, you know, people are collecting these, they love their Pokemon cards. It's just, it's been nuts. I had no idea that they, it is like an investment. Yeah. And we're keeping a couple cause Brett loves them. He's like, these are my favorite ones. I'm like, fine.
Faith (55:42)
That is insane. Okay, don't. This is...
That's amazing for one card.
It's like an investment. Wow.
Taylor (56:08)
⁓ so anyways, I know, I know.
Faith (56:09)
They're like, let's see if they're a 10 first, boo. Let's see if they're a 10. Well, like even the 10s, yeah.
Because in 40 years, those 10s are gonna, I don't know, pay off our house. I don't know. That's amazing. Okay, my money moment is nowhere near as cool as that. It's literally, all right, y'all, we, it's so lame. We don't escrow our property taxes, so it doesn't come out of our monthly,
Taylor (56:18)
I know. No, seriously. So, OK.
Faith (56:40)
mortgage, yep, we just paid at the end of the year. And that's so that we can, so we can invest it and make more money on it through a money market account. So we'd rather make more money keeping that and then we get more money and then we make the payment at end of the year. That's my only tip. There you go. Don't escrow. If you can do it, if you can do it and swing it, don't escrow. Property tax is where we live our like
Taylor (56:40)
More years payment? Yeah.
Why did it?
That's a great idea.
Faith (57:07)
lower where I feel like we could do that, like our property taxes per year are three grand. So it's not like an enormous amount of money where some based on where you live, sometimes the property taxes are like a ton of money. And so you do need to like pull it out. But yeah, we don't escrow.
Taylor (57:12)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
What's the interest in your money market account?
Faith (57:27)
There's a couple percent. It's not like astronomical, but if you're, if you already have a lot of money in there too, in a money market account, and then you're adding that, you can make a little money on it.
Taylor (57:28)
Okay. Mm-hmm.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's interesting. Because because yeah, we pay our
property taxes through escrow and I wonder, hmm, fascinating. Well, we're about to sell our house anyways, but interesting. I love that.
Faith (57:43)
Yeah.
We have a money,
we have a money market account through our credit union and then we have another one through Morgan Stanley. So yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's my money. Yours is way better though. We're going to compare. No.
Taylor (57:52)
Mmm. Okay. Love it. Well.
No, we don't need to do that.
We don't
need to do all that.
All right. Well, great, great episode. Thanks, everyone, for listening. And we'll be back in two weeks.
Faith (58:09)
Cool.
Yeah.
Bye.